It confounds everything she's ever thought she knew and understood about quantum physics. It coaxes her into contradictions and impossibilities, forcing her to reject the absolutes of mathematics and accept irrationality as a basic foundation. It dances along time and space, both a wave and a particle, laughing at her specialized knowledge and mocking the cool logic of numbers.

And she loves it. Because it also introduces her to wonders, both beautiful and terrible, that she never dreamed existed. It challenges her to think outside the box, and then discard the box entirely and build a brand new one. It teaches her to step sideways in space-time through blue-shifted light into infinite potential, to abandon the stolidity of human thought and open her mind to a galaxy of questions and theories and sometimes, even answers.

She knows that she's paid the price: in grief, and pain, and mental scars; in love, and loss, and a deeper, starker glimpse at the depths of her own psyche than anyone would ever want to see. But it's a price she's paid willingly, and she'll continue to pay, as long as that siren song beckons her to step into wonder and enchantment.

It's ten years, now, that she's been walking through the Gate.

And no matter how blasé she might appear on the outside, no matter how casual her routine habits seem, Sam knows that it will never, ever get old.

To most, Abydos was a symbol. 

Humanity saw Abydos as its champion: the catalyst which caused the destruction of the greatest of the System Lords, the site where the Tau'ri exploded back into the universe on a wave of triumph and a show of power. The Goa'uld were fallible. The Goa'uld were vulnerable. The odds couldn't be overwhelming if a handful of humans had toppled Ra from the height of power where he'd reigned over his own kind for millennia. The story flew from world to world, as silent and enduring as starsong: the Goa'uld could be killed. The greatest of them all had already been destroyed. For those still enslaved, the tale of Abydos, whispered in the dark, was a lesson in hope.

The people of Earth looked to Abydos for more than inspiration, for it also gave them new horizons. Abydos served as Earth's gateway to the universe. Sister planet, close enough to evade the fatal catch of stellar drift, Abydos had beckoned them into a greater, nearly infinite landscape. Daniel might have handed Earth the keys, but Abydos gave the Tau'ri the map to the galaxy.

The Goa'uld, on the other hand, saw Abydos as both trophy and menace. Ra's greatest source of naquadah, ripe for the taking? It was a deliberate power play for Apophis to harvest hosts from Ra's worlds, including the near-mythological First World and Abydos, where Ra had first settled his Ta'uri slaves. Yet even as Apophis paraded Amaunet's host, an Abydon native, in front of the other System Lords, none could avoid the frisson of unease. Ra was dead. For all their failed scheming and plotting and battles for unchanging generations, Ra had been killed. By humans. Over Abydos. It was a planet that reeked of danger, and it would never be allowed to fade into obscurity. 

It was why Anubis so ruthlessly turned the power of the Eyes on Abydos. If he was going to truly assert his standing as master over the other Goa'uld, what greater symbol could he find than the destruction of the site of Ra's death and the Tau'ri's emergence into the galaxy?

Daniel, on the other hand, cannot see Abydos as a symbol. There are labels, to be sure, buried deep beneath the surface of his subconscious, never to be acknowledged: the tangible proof of his theories, his journey through symbolical water and literal fire, the threshold where he paused, teetering, for over a year before toppling into the wider universe. But when Daniel thinks of Abydos, the imagery is more immediate, more real, and infinitely precious. 

Because Daniel loves Abydos not as a symbol, but as itself. It is the physical embodiment of the world he has sought in the sands of time and erosion of his life, and he walks across its sands with awe and wonder. It is blessed with a people of passion and courage and spirit, who love and fight and roar with the zest for life that can only be experienced by those who were enslaved and won their freedom. It offers him the ultimate anthropologist's dream in a culture that enchants and maddens all at once. And it grants him a family: a wife of astonishing intelligence and humor, a good father and a good brother, dozens of cousins in bewilderingly complex layers of attachment. He walked away from Earth to embrace Abydos, and for all the frustrations he sometimes encounters, he never truly regrets it.

Even when Sha're dies, and his journey to Abydos is weighted by staggering grief (with that guilty hint of relief that she is at peace, and he'll never say so), there is an odd comfort in knowing that her body, lovingly wrapped in linen folds, lies embraced and cradled by the shifting sands... 

And that is why Daniel now huddles on the floor of Teal'c's quarters, shaking uncontrollably, crumpled in on himself. It is why the silent comfort of Teal'c's strong hand on his shoulder goes unnoticed, and the keening wail of despair dies unvoiced in his throat. It is why their quiet session on meditation has been abandoned for the devastation of absolute mourning, and Daniel knows that he will never get the chance to indulge in the serenity of home.

Because Daniel Jackson has remembered what happened to Abydos, and he will never tread across its sands again.

It is whispered among the Goa'uld that the Tau'ri are telepathic...

"Hey, Daniel!" Sam called from across the stone plaza. "Did you see this?"

Daniel straightened from his stooped position and turned his head. "What?"

"Come take a look."

With a last glance at the glyphs carved into the trapdoor, Daniel crossed the plaza to where Sam was fiddling with an exposed panel.

"See?" Sam pointed. "Isn't this the same thing as --"

"Oh, you're right!" Daniel squinted and carefully prodded a crystal. "From the time when you --"

"Exactly! And didn't you say then that it was --"

"Probably an offshoot of Ancient Mayan, which has to do with --" 

"So I tried to get a reading on it, and look!" Sam stabbed a finger at one of her readouts. "It's almost exactly like the time when --"

"That's brilliant, Sam! But what if we shifted it over to --"

"Oooh, hadn't thought of that! Let me see."

She reached inside the panel with a tool and delicately manipulated one of the crystals.

"Try the fourteenth," Daniel advised. "The Mayan counted by thirteens, so --"

"So we want to get to the next group of numbers, of course!"

 Daniel's finger drew a circle in the air. "They believed that everything was in narrow layers. Life and death..."

"Or the surface and underground?"

"It's definitely possible. Of course, if we'd --"

"I think that's it!"

The two of them whipped their heads around simultaneously and stared expectantly at the trapdoor. After a long, breathless moment, it obediently grated back to expose a staircase of worn stone, descending deep into the ground.

"Yes!" Sam and Daniel chorused in triumph.

Daniel started eagerly forward, with Sam only a step behind. He was only two steps away from the stairs, his hand fumbling for the flashlight fastened to his vest, when a shout cracked through the chilly air. 

"Daniel!"

Daniel stopped at the head of the stairs, but did not turn round. "Jack?" he replied, his voice innocent. 

Jack marched across the clearing towards Sam and Daniel, glowering. "Daniel!" he snapped again.

"Jack," Daniel shrugged. He did turn them, and crossed his arms.

Jack halted two feet away and narrowed his eyes. "Daniel."

"Jack." Daniel drew out the name, almost in a singsong, and gave him a pointed look.

Jack snorted with indignation. "Daniel!"

Daniel didn't quite roll his eyes, but he did uncross his arms so he could flail meaningfully with one hand. "Jack!"

"Daniel," Jack sighed, frustrated.

"But sir," Sam tried to protest, but Jack held up a warning finger to silence her. 

"Aht!" he snapped. She subsided, a little sulkily, and Jack resumed with his main argument. "Daniel," he repeated, his tone weighted with menace. He tapped at his watch.

Daniel just shook his head. "Jack," he warned.

The two of them stared at each other for several seconds. Then Jack gave up.

"Oh, all right!"

Daniel's face lit up with a delighted smile. "Thank you, Jack," he said. "C'mon, Sam, let's go! We've only got fifteen minutes."

"Colonel, you walk a fine line."

George Hammond remembered telling O'Neill that, in a tone of almost fond exasperation. But Jack O'Neill's regular dance along the line of insubordination was nothing compared to the tightrope that George found himself walking every day.

He had to follow orders. He had to keep his people safe. He had to do his duty to the oaths he took, the uniform he wore, the country he served, the planet he protected.

But he also had to question ethical directives, struggle with the pressure to justify any means, cope with the uncanny and bizarre on a regular basis, and deal with a seething morass of military and civilian and alien, forging it all into a coherent, working whole.

There were days when it seemed that those conflicting demands couldn't possibly coexist.

He teetered on the edge of that line, sometimes. There were occasions when he'd missed a step: the decision to strip-mine trinium behind the Salish's backs, the willingness to bow to pressure from above and sign a treaty with a nation bent on genocide. There were times when he risked being shoved off the line by those with their own agenda: his willing debasement in Kinsey's office, his defiance of orders to personally go after his people, the personal threat to his grandchildren. For the most part, though, George maneuvered his way through the minefield of command with deft precision, juggling the need to pacify the Pentagon and the Oval Office with the even greater necessity of protecting the men and women under his command.

It was a dangerously fine line that demanded a constant weighing of options and choices.

He could only pray that he never slipped and fell.

Hammond leaned slightly forward, fascination warring with horror.

"This Gamekeeper pretended to be me?" he repeated.

"He drew his material directly from our minds, sir," Captain Carter explained.

"Well, my mind. And Daniel's," Colonel O'Neill qualified. His brows were locked in a tight scowl. "He got everything right, from the SFs to all those little... doohickeys in the infirmary."

"The visual simulation was impeccable," Teal'c said calmly, his clasped hands resting on the briefing room table. "There was nothing to indicate that we were not actually back at the SGC."

Hammond let out a slow breath. He made a mental note to discuss the ramifications of security breaches with the colonel at a later time - possibly over a clandestine glass of whiskey, considering O'Neill's obvious fury at the invasion of his privacy. For now, though, he wanted to know how his people had escaped such an insidious trap.

"So the Gamekeeper masqueraded as me," he said again. It was appallingly irresistible to imagine the Gamekeeper rummaging through SG-1's brains and imprinting on his own image as the perfect foil. "What made you realize that you were still on the planet?"

They all blinked at him for a moment.

"Well, it was obvious, sir," Carter said.

"Once he actually opened his mouth, it was all over, really," O'Neill added dismissively.

Hammond frowned. "I don't understand."

Doctor Jackson, whose own struggle to clamp down on his anger had kept him silent until now, looked up from his prolonged study of the table surface. "He didn't show any concern for our safety, sir," he explained in a low, soft voice. "We knew it couldn't possibly be you."

It was Hammond's turn to blink. He sat back in his chair, looking at each of the four members of SG-1 in turn. Even Teal'c was nodding in agreement, although his nod was infinitely more stately and regal than the others.

A slow smile spread across his face, to match the warm glow he felt within his heart.

He always cared for his people, for the men and women under his command.

It was good to know that they knew it, too.

rich and cloying, the copper taste of blood

overlays all senses

turning hearing into muffled murmurs, his sense of smell clogged by memories of

Charlie not Charlie no no no

blood coats his tongue.

pinned against merciless metal mesh

he blinks blood away and watches that crystal vial tipping, spilling

droplets hang, then dart across the room

searing breastbone, burrowing deep to flay nerve endings

and Jack wants to scream, but the blood runs into his throat, gagging and choking.

gravity at his back, dragging him down, down,

is this how Cromwell felt when he plunged into the black hole of the Gate?

Carter would tell him if he's still falling, still feeling.

Jack is falling now, falling, failing, blood seeping everywhere but into his veins,

his heart pumping, frantic to find

the blood that pools beneath that small body, and Sara is somewhere, sobbing instructions on the phone, and Charlie's gasping breaths have him scrambling to stop, stop it, stop the blood that paints his hands and arms as it drains...

another acid droplet splashes his cheek,

scalds inwards, and the blood trickles faster now.

a voice rumbles somewhere to the right, above him, and Jack doesn't want to listen

he wants this to stop, he wants to stop the blood that flows and thickens and keeps

Charlie. Charlie. Charlie.

his tormentor asks questions, and questions,

and no one tells you that the devil loves all that glitters and is gold

and holds her hostage

or that there will never ever be relief

manicured hands, fingering the vial, playing with it

tilting it then straightening, a threat and a promise

but the promise is hollow, because even if the last blood drains away

and it will, just like Charlie's

it will just start again.

again and again and again.

"Daniel," he tries to say

but he can only mouth it, because his vocal cords are torn from screams and acid

and ebbing strength

"Daniel."

Daniel.

he doesn't know if the word is plea

or prayer, or profanity

but as his vision dims to black

and he gasps one last bubbling breath

and his heart stutters and fails

he knows that he only wants this to end.